{"id":7683,"date":"2016-02-16T09:12:11","date_gmt":"2016-02-16T09:12:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=7683"},"modified":"2016-02-16T23:04:22","modified_gmt":"2016-02-16T23:04:22","slug":"was-james-ibori-trial-impartial","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/?p=7683","title":{"rendered":"Was James Ibori trial impartial?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\"\"More revelations have unfolded in the much celebrated case that saw the erstwhile Delta State Governor, James Onanefe Ibori who has been behind bars in the United Kingdom since April 2012 on alleged corruption charges. Evidence has sprung up of the possibility of bias and obstruction of justice on the part of the prosecution in the handling of the case.
\nThere were shocking disclosures of the twin conspiracy of the Prosecution and the British Department for International Development (DFID), a supposed International Development Agency to pervert the course of justice and deny the former Governor of the oil rich state in the Niger-Delta area of Nigeria the inalienable right to an impartial trial. There are heavy pointers to the fact that the Prosecution was financially compromised and the DFID also took more than a passing interest bothering on a clear conflict of interest in the case by illegally funding it with the hope of getting a whooping sum of 25 million pounds from the sale of Ibori\u2019s assets before any repatriation would be made back to Nigeria.
\nThere is the sturdy possibility of the entire trial being a sham because of the possible lack of a key element which every accused should be entitled to \u2013 audi alteram partem (right to fair hearing).
\nMet police chief under fire again over claims that officers were bribed during investigation into Nigerian politician jailed for fraud
\n\u2022 Met police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe to be grilled by MPs next week
\n\u2022 Over claims Scotland Yard and CPS were involved in \u2018deliberate cover-up\u2019
\n\u2022 Officers \u2018took cash to leak inquiry details to help Nigerian politician go free\u2019
\n\u2022 The allegations of corruption were revealed by a whistle-blowing lawyer
\n\u2022 Embattled Metropolitan Police chief Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe will be grilled by MPs next week over bombshell claims that Scotland Yard and the Crown Prosecution Service were involved in a \u2018deliberate cover-up\u2019 of damning evidence of police corruption.
\n\u2022 A court was told that the Met and the CPS repeatedly concealed documents suggesting that officers investigating a billionaire Nigerian politician for fraud were paid to leak details of the inquiry that could have helped him evade justice.
\n\u2022 One detective was said to have received at least 19 unexplained cash deposits totalling thousands of pounds into his bank account, after illegally disclosing sensitive information, a judge heard.
\n\u2022 But when the corruption allegations were revealed by a whistle-blowing lawyer, the lawyer was accused of forging the evidence, and charged with perverting the course of justice. Police privately expressed fears that his devastating claims could undermine the \u00a350million fraud trial.
\n\u2022 Last month the charges against the solicitor were dramatically dropped after the CPS was forced to produce crucial papers, which it had always insisted did not exist, that suggest serving Met officers took bribes.
\n\u2022 Although the Met insists no corruption took place, the case leaves the Met Commissioner \u2013 already under fire over his refusal to apologise for the Yard\u2019s disastrous historical sex abuse investigations \u2013 facing difficult questions from the Home Affairs Select Committee next week, as he was personally warned about the potential miscarriage of justice three years ago.
\n\u2022 The CPS\u2019s handling of the case, criticised by former police as well as the defendants, will also increase pressure on Director of Public Prosecutions Alison Saunders, who faced calls to quit over her failure to put Lord Janner on trial.
\n\u2022 As the full astonishing story is told for the first time, it can also be revealed that a Met Commander, Peter Spindler, who reported directly to Sir Bernard, told the BBC the corruption claims were bogus without having checked if documents were genuine.
\n\u2022
\n\u2022 Last night the lawyer who had been accused of forgery, Bhadresh Gohil, told The Mail on Sunday: \u2018I uncovered serious corruption, but when I tried to expose this, I was victimised. Astonishingly, the CPS used the might of the state and all its resources to cover up what had happened, and brought trumped-up charges to persecute me. The truth has finally unravelled.\u2019
\n\u2022 MP Keith Vaz, chairman of the Home Affairs Committee, said: \u2018Members have indicated they will want to ask the Commissioner, when he next appears before the committee, to deal with the latest developments which raise a number of new questions.\u2019
\n\u2022 The extraordinary case centres on Scotland Yard\u2019s prosecution of James Ibori, who once worked as a cashier at a branch of Wickes DIY store in West London before returning to his native Nigeria to enter politics and become one of Africa\u2019s richest men as governor of oil-rich Delta State.
\n\u2022 Involved: James Ibori (left) is a Nigerian billionaire politician jailed for fraud in a case that is said to be tainted. Alison Saunders (right) is head of the Crown Prosecution Service, which disclosed papers it said didn\u2019t exist
\n\u2022 He was jailed for 13 years in 2012 at Southwark Crown Court after admitting fraud and money-laundering following the Met investigation into his vast wealth, with the court hearing that he siphoned off public cash to live a \u2018lavish lifestyle\u2019, enjoying a private jet, homes in Hampstead and Regents Park, armoured cars and places at top British boarding schools for his children.
\n\u2022 Gohil, who was Ibori\u2019s business lawyer, was also jailed for seven years after admitting fraud, although he claims he was wrongly advised to do so by his then legal team. He was separately found guilty of money-laundering \u2013 a charge he continues to deny.
\n\u2022 The investigation by the Department of Professional Standards into Mr Gohil\u2019s allegations of corruption was a whitewash and was deliberately designed to find that no corruption of the type Mr Gohil had complained about existed\u2026 it was designed to fail.
\n\u2022 Gohil\u2019s defence counsel Stephen Kamlish QC
\n\u2022 While he was in Wandsworth Prison he was anonymously sent information suggesting police in the case had been in the pay of a British firm of private investigators, RISC Management, hired by Ibori.
\n\u2022 Documents were also sent to the Met and the police watchdog alleging that officers had received kickbacks worth thousands of pounds and Gohil told the home affairs select committee in May 2012 that the case was tainted by \u2018apparent corruption right at the heart of Scotland Yard\u2019.
\n\u2022 Gohil planned to use the evidence of police corruption to overturn his convictions.
\n\u2022 But astonishingly on the eve of his appeal in June 2014, he found himself facing another jail sentence as the CPS told him he would be charged with perverting the course of justice for allegedly forging the crucial documents. His appeal bid was duly rejected.
\n\u2022 His defence team were desperate to obtain evidence to back up Gohil\u2019s claim that Ibori\u2019s solicitors and RISC had improper contact with the investigating officers, but the CPS repeatedly insisted there were no such documents.
\n\u2022 Then, in a shock development, prosecutors were forced to reveal the very documents they had always maintained did not exist.
\n\u2022 Just days later they dramatically dropped the entire case without explaining why, only admitting that unspecified new information had come to light.
\n\u2022 Ex-Metropolitan detective John McDonald (left) has been accused in court and in legal papers of corruption. Former Yard anti-corruption chief Peter Spindler (right) failed to check if the documents were genuine
\n\u2022 In a written submission to Southwark Crown Court last month, days before the charges were dropped, Gohil\u2019s defence counsel Stephen Kamlish QC claimed the prosecution \u2018in bad faith failed to investigate\u2019 who had received cash payments.
\n\u2022 In a second submission, he accused the prosecution of a \u2018deliberate cover-up\u2019.
\n\u2022 In open court last week, Kamlish said he planned to fight a renewed appeal for Gohil on the basis that \u2018prosecuting counsel misled not only this court but the Court of Appeal in saying there was no disclosable material\u2019.
\n\u2022 The result was, he said, that Gohil\u2019s original appeal against his convictions for money-laundering and fraud had been decided on \u2018false facts\u2019.
\n\u2022 AID MINISTRY\u2019S \u2018\u00a325M RAKE-OFF\u2019
\n\u2022 The Department for International Development (DFID) has been involved in the Ibori case since its outset. It paid for the police inquiry, though at the same time it had invested vast sums in businesses Ibori controlled, prompting claims in court of a conflict of interest.
\n\u2022 Last week, it was also claimed that DFID would be paid \u00a325 million from Ibori\u2019s assets when proceedings to seize them are complete. DFID denies this.
\n\u2022 When the investigation into the Nigerian billionaire started in 2006, DFID was funding the special Scotland Yard unit dedicated to fighting corruption abroad to the tune of \u00a3700,000 a year. This sum has since risen by a staggering 600 per cent: DFID has pledged \u00a321 million to the unit, now part of the National Crime Agency, for the period 2015-20.
\n\u2022 This sum is defined as foreign aid, and so counts towards David Cameron\u2019s pledge to donate the equivalent of 0.7 per cent of the UK\u2019s economic output to the developing world annually.
\n\u2022 But although DFID was effectively paying for the police inquiry into Ibori, at the same time its investment arm, CDC (formerly the Commonwealth Development Corporation), had invested hundreds of millions of pounds into banks and other businesses in which Ibori had huge interests. A DFID spokesman said yesterday there was no conflict of interest in the Ibori case, because although DFID did fund the police unit, it did not influence its operations.
\n\u2022 If granted, this appeal would make legal history: normally the Appeal Court cannot hear a case it has already turned down.
\n\u2022 Kamlish also told the judge: \u2018The investigation by the Department of Professional Standards into Mr Gohil\u2019s allegations of corruption was a whitewash and was deliberately designed to find that no corruption of the type Mr Gohil had complained about existed\u2026 it was designed to fail.\u2019
\n\u2022 Briefing the BBC in 2012, the Yard admitted that if they had found evidence of corruption it would have wrecked the case against Ibori.
\n\u2022 The Mail on Sunday can reveal for the first time today some of the dynamite evidence grudgingly handed over by the Crown, and cited in court, that may have led it to drop the charge against Gohil of perverting the course of justice.
\n\u2022 One of the more serious corruption claims concerns an alleged meeting between DC John McDonald, who was investigating Ibori, and RISC director Clifford Knuckey, on September 10, 2007.
\n\u2022 According to an RISC document, Knuckey claimed \u00a346.75 in expenses for a meal he enjoyed in a pub with a source that day.
\n\u2022 Two days later, it was recorded that he held a \u2018meeting with confidential source to hand over source payment for information provided\u2026 \u00a35,000.\u2019 Telephone records, also newly revealed, include 120 calls from RISC to Met officers during the Ibori investigation \u2013 including one to DC McDonald on the day of the pub meeting.
\n\u2022 Another document reveals DC McDonald made 19 unexplained cash deposits into his bank account, most of around \u00a3500, while he was working on the case in 2007.
\n\u2022 After the pub meeting, private investigator Knuckey provided a report to Ibori\u2019s lawyers detailing secret information he had been given about the case.
\n\u2022 Their records stated: \u2018CK [Knuckey] explained that he had met with a senior officer on 10 September 2007\u2019 and that \u2018DC McDonald (DCM) has had a serious fall out\u2019 with other officers on the case.
\n\u2022 A RISC list of payments reveals that between 2006 and 2007 the firm paid some \u00a3360,000 to a network of confidential sources in Ibori\u2019s and other cases, delivered in cash by couriers to the firm\u2019s London offices. It is not known if any were serving police officers.
\n\u2022 In his court submission, Kamlish claimed the Crown knew \u2018that there is clear and compelling, direct and circumstantial evidence of a corrupt relationship between RISC and MPS [Met] officers\u2019.
\n\u2022 DC McDonald was arrested and interviewed by Yard investigators in 2012. He admitted speaking to and meeting Knuckey<\/code><\/p>\n

Daily Independent\"Ibori\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

More revelations have unfolded in the much celebrated case that saw the erstwhile Delta State Governor, James Onanefe Ibori who has been behind bars in the United Kingdom since April 2012 on alleged corruption charges. Evidence has sprung up of the possibility of bias and obstruction of justice on the part of the prosecution in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":6802,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"spay_email":"","footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false},"categories":[7],"tags":[1417,1414,410,1416,1415],"class_list":["post-7683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-opinion","tag-bhadresh-gohil","tag-international-development-agency","tag-james-ibori","tag-peter-spindler","tag-sir-bernard-hogan-howe"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/wp-content\/uploads\/2015\/12\/Ibori.jpg","jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_shortlink":"https:\/\/wp.me\/p4oswh-1ZV","_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=7683"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7724,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7683\/revisions\/7724"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/6802"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=7683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=7683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/newsroom247.com.ng\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=7683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}